Stefan M Wierda, PhD

Last June, Cecilia Heyes and Chris Frith published a nicely written paper on the cultural evolution of mind reading in Science. Note that when I'm talking about mind reading, I do not mean the science-fiction practice of telepathy. Like Heyes and Frith, with mind reading I mean the ability to understand the actions, intentions, feelings, and thoughts of another person (I prefer the term theory of mind or folks psychology). In the paper, Heyes and Frith defend the cultural evolutionary account of mind reading—this basically means that mind-reading is a skill like reading, writing, or bicycling, and that it is taught from one human to another. However, this does not mean that there are no genetics at work. You still need the right genetic tools that allow you to learn the skill (try to teach your cat to cycle a bike).

I decided to redesign my website a bit. The idea is to occasionally post opinions and summaries on scientific papers, theories, and ideas that are related to the fields I follow (e.g., transfer of cognitive skills, theory of mind, and attentional blink). Also, I might post something on entrepreneurship and Doddledays now and then.